3 ms·
In retrospect, the golden age was the pre-internet era. Some rose-colored glasses maybe, but as I remember it: Paying for software was the norm, so it was more
by SoftTalker 2mo ago
In retrospect, the golden age was the pre-internet era. Some rose-colored glasses maybe, but as I remember it:
Paying for software was the norm, so it was more clear what the "product" was, and software writers had a direct incentive to write better software.
Updates could not be pushed out so you had to be pretty sure your code worked before you shipped it. Having to ship physical media to all your customers for a bug fix was very expensive. Any new release was a big deal, so you had to put some real thought into what features it should contain.
Significant amounts of your development time were not spent trying to work around browser bugs, or differences in browsers, or supporting random old browsers that your customers still use for <reasons>.
Stack churn was much slower. The feeling of constantly trying to keep up with a treadmill was much less.
Users, while often not technology experts, were a much more competent slice of people than the general public who showed up when they got internet service and a computer at home.
The only ads were in print in trade magazines or publications like Computer Shopper. Yes, people actually used to buy a magazine that was nothing but ads.
- saulpw 2mo agoYou're right about those things, but you're forgetting that we had no source control, and almost all software was closed source. You took what you were given and you liked it, and you developed strong attachments to particular versions of software which you clung to well beyond its use-by date (like Python 2.7). MS-DOS 3.3 forever!
- skydhash 2mo agoWe had version control in the 70s with SCSS and then RCS. They were primitive, but a lot of software were only a few files.
- saulpw 2mo agoIn the 80s, source control was like networking. Yes some orgs had it (mostly academia) but the rest of us just had a precious floppy that we copied the known-good source onto.
- cdud3 2mo agoWe had an own good-releases directory in our svn repository! That's when you realize old habits are hard to change.
- MyHonestOpinon 2mo agoI started using SCCS in the late 80s, then RCS, then CSV, then subversion, and finally git.
- butlike 2mo agoGoing to CompUSA and looking at the back of the box for not only video games, but spreadsheet and translation software, too; was awesome. As a kid I always wondered about the adults who needed such software as the back of the Deus Ex or Shogun Total War boxes captured my imagination. Since it sounds like you built software during that era, thanks. Thanks for the memories.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- hn_throwaway_99 2mo agoIn thinking about it more, I think you're totally correct. For the vast part of my career I worked for good companies that I thought were comparatively very well managed, and I was especially fortunate that overall I think I had excellent bosses. But the reality of the Internet age and CICD in particular is that speed is much more important than quality. I don't even really disagree with the business imperative of "ship, ship, ship", but for people who really value their craft, it can be discouraging shipping stuff you know is always kinda half baked. I was definitely not a "gold plater" either, and time pressure was certainly a thing pre-Internet, but as you say mistakes were a lot more expensive then so there was more business rationale to ensure quality before a release.